


Exordium

by SerenStone



Series: Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light [8]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Do Not Do As the Warlock Do, Gen, The Medusa, We Stan AI in this House, We Stan Warlocks in this House
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:34:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24318121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerenStone/pseuds/SerenStone
Series: Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743430
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	Exordium

Emma stood near the base of the black tetrahedron and looked up through the cavern, then to either side. It was impossible to really gauge the size of the thing. The perfect matte black of its planes and edges made it seem both unending and finite at once. 

If she had brought Melchor down here with her she would have asked him for measurements but, given the reports she’d stolen from the Vanguard of what had happened to The Gentleman’s Ghost when he’d blown through here, she had chosen not to risk him. Not that she was actually anywhere near the route any of Eris’ people were taking. She hadn’t wanted to deal with the entitlement of the Vanguard’s membership. 

Not taking her eyes from the pyramid, she reached over her shoulder and pulled off the rifle she’d come to call Whisper. She carried it wrapped in oiled leather and it took a moment to unwrap. Pointing the rifle at the pyramid, she peered down the sights and examined the far edges for things she might have missed. No luck. Time for a chat.

Carefully, Emma brought the focus of her mind to rest on the weapon in her hands. “What do you see?” she asked, the sights still pointed at the tetrahedron.

“Aiat,” came the whisper she’d heard a thousand times now. All she knew was that it was pleased in some way when it used that word.

“Come on, then. What’s good about it?”

“The Deep,” the whispers slithered through her mind. 

“Look, unless you’re going to make sense I’m going to put you away and do this on my own. Which do you want?”

A hissing at the back of her mind prompted her to look over her shoulder. A man-shaped shadow took a single step toward her into the faint light. Human, pale skinned, red hair, blue eyes, male presenting, no visible weapons, warlock robes. “Plenty of folks talk to their guns. Not many expect the gun to talk back.”

She could sense that they were a Lightbearer, but like none she’d ever met before. “None of that sounds like your problem,” she noted crisply. 

“Very nearly, ma’am,” they agreed earlestly. “But most folks ask who it is they’re listening to before they decide to trust them.”

Frowning, Emma wondered how they could possibly guess whether or not she’d asked that question. “Well, who are you?”

“Nisus Blaise,” he said, smiling beautifically at her question.

“You-” she started. “Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“Oh, it takes more than someone closing and locking the box I’m in to kill me.” He leaned back a bit on his heels. “It slowed me down some, sure, but I’m not dead.”

“Right,” she said slowly. “And the rest of your team?”

“Did Caris and Gordon not make it out?” he turned concerned instantaneously. 

“They both reported to the Vanguard. Caris vanished shortly after giving her report. Gordon lingered in the Tower for a few months but… Supposedly he still walks the wall but I’ve never seen him.”

“So no Ghost ever gave him a second chance?” The man was visibly distressed.

“Not that I’ve heard of,” she said.

“And Caris just up and poofed?”

“That’s what I’ve read.”

“Damn,” he sighed, frustrated.

“What about the rest of Win Count?”

Nisus’ expression turned grim and flinty. “Oryx’ darkness cancelled out their Light. Their Ghosts are just empty shells now. They were all waiting on a rez.”

Emma thought of Drifter’s mote banks. “I wonder if Light could be carried to them,” she mused, forming an orb of Light in one hand, Whisper hanging from the other. “It’d take barrels of the stuff for a single Ghost, I’m sure but,” she trailed off, chewing her lip. 

“I hadn’t even,” Nisus stared at the orb, his Ghost had even appeared over his shoulder to look at it. If they’d been trapped in Oryx’ Ascendent Realm all this time… With the appearance of idleness, she flicked the orb at the Ghost who absorbed it immediately, optical flare becoming immediately brighter. 

“Oh!” the Ghost cried, tilting in place.

“Edgar?”

“Let me bask a minute,” the Ghost said. 

Smiling, Emma formed and offered another to Nisus. “Let Edgar,” the man said immediately and the Ghost swooped in. 

“You said very nearly,” she said quietly after watching Edgar’s delight.

“Yes ma’am, I did,” he agreed.

“Why?”

“I’d hazard a guess it’s better if you heard it from… him,” Nisus gestured to the rifle in her hand.

Emma arched a brow at the man but lifted the rifle and brought her attention back to the Whisper. “Who are you?” she asked. 

“XOL,” the whispers sounded as they had in the strange place on Io where she’d found the rifle and the breath left her in a rush. “The Will of Thousands. Aiat.”

“Oh,” she barely managed.

“Do not be revolted,” the whispers soothed. “A Guardian’s power makes rich feeding ground. There are parasites that may benefit the host… teeth sharper than your own.”

Emma took a moment to catch her breath. “I’m not revolted,” she told the rifle. “I’m disappointed.” He had no response for that. She wrapped the rifle again and put it back on her back with a scowl. “That’s royally complicated,” she muttered.

“What will you do?”

She turned to glare at Nisus. “How did you know?”

“I watched from the throne,” he said, casually. “I could see things pertinent to the Hive. There was little else to do. I watched Mars thaw for the return of a Bray. I watched a single Lightbearer face Nokris, Herald of Xol and his entire Grasp entirely on her own and defeat them. I watched her face and defeat Xol himself only for Xol to flee to Io where he began Taking the idle Taken there.” Nisus turned to meet her eyes directly. “Until you arrived, Miss Blake,” he smiled but it looked predatory.

Emma maintained her scowl. “What do you want?”

His eyes glittered in the dark and Edgar turned to watch. “I want the Hive,” he threw his arms to either side. “Utterly destroyed.” The strangeness in his aura deepened and widened, and she could not look away. “I want their gods dead. I want their leaders dead. I want to watch as the last thralls consume each other until nothing of their rot yet twitches with life.

“As for yourself, Miss Blake, it would seem you have a will so provocative that the Will of Thousands took note and remade itself into a weapon suited to your hands in order to be wielded by you.” Still she could not look away. “You are fascinating. I need to know what you will do with the Whisper of the Worm.”

Emma stared at Nisus, swallowing thickly. “I don’t know yet what I will do with it. Based on your words Xol reformed himself from what, nothing? Into a rifle, one made of Taken matter at that. Further studies of the weapon are warranted. Furthermore, I have no information upon which to base a plan for eradicating a Hive god even should I want to. I need to do an incredible amount of further research and study before I can begin to come to a reasonable conclusion.”

“And if I were to offer you the necessary knowledge?”

“I would still wish to conduct further studies before making use of that knowledge,” she insisted. 

Something in the man shifted and she no longer felt quite so afraid. “Fascinating,” he said again. “It is a delight to meet you, Miss Blake. It’s been far too long since I met an intelligent Lightbearer.”

“You were going to kill me,” she said slowly, as she understood.

“Only if you made it necessary,” he shrugged. “You did not.”

Emma swallowed again. “Are you still going to offer me the necessary knowledge?”

“I’d have sent it to you already if I knew how to contact your Ghost,” Nisus said. 

“I have a datapad. You may overwrite everything on it,” she said, producing it.

“Intelligent,” Nisus said again, watching her with hooded eyes as he accepted the datapad and held it up for Edgar. 

“What’s not intelligent is declaring your plan here,” she gestured over her shoulder to the pyramid.

“Oh, I’ve already told them directly what I’m going to do,” Nisus smiled, amiable. 

“Unintelligent, one could say,” she said.

Nisus chuckled. “I never claimed to be intelligent.” Edgar beeped. “In this conversation, at least. And I do not regret it. I am glad for those fuckers to know exactly what they did when they made me an enemy,” he exhaled sharply. Some of the edge of him that made her want to escape him returned. “The Hive have cost me two fireteams,” he said, his voice and words simple even as the tone was anything but. “I have no desire for balancing the books now. I want revenge, simple and complex as that.”

“The Taken?” she asked. 

“Without the Hive, the number of people who can Take dwindles near to zero,” he mused, side eyeing her. “One would expect they would wish to keep their capabilities secret and would thereby either leave the system or Take very, very few.”

“That would be clever,” she said softly.

“Intelligent, even,” he countered.

“There are more,” she said. “Pyramids. Different sizes. I’ve seen them.”

Nisus’ expression turned to one of concern. “Miss Blake,” he said slowly. “I’m sorry. I did not know you had.”

“Does it matter?” she asked, suddenly fierce. 

“It does,” he said, soothing. “It means you’ve been worrying about this on your own for some time. That’s not a thing I would wish on anyone.”

Emma hesitated, studying his face. “They’re coming.”

“They are,” he agreed. “The Hive gods are some of their oldest servants. I am not yet prepared to face an entire paracausal entity on my lonesome. But I can sure irritate the hell out of them if I put my mind to it.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “Let’s hope you can do more than that by the time they get here.”

“Will you help me?” he asked, suddenly hesitant. “I didn’t think anyone else knew. Anyone had seen.”

“You are not the only one,” she said without naming names. “Nor are we the only few.”

“But-” Nisus collected himself, the vulnerability vanishing behind ease. “I am relieved to hear that. It is good to know that folks are coming at this from other directions as well.” He offered her the datapad.

Emma took it and turned it in her hands, watching him as he performed for himself. “Ask differently?” She was unsure what she was looking for. 

Nisus paused, looking at her blankly for a moment before a shy smile settled on his face. “Miss Emma Selene Blake, would you please do me the honor of helping me destroy the Hive? An intelligence like yours, and force of will, could only improve my chances of success.”

Emma smiled. “I’d be delighted to listen and advise. I make no commitments toward taking part in the action. I’m a bit terrible at combat.”

“I find that hard to believe,” he admitted, though he offered her a hand to shake.

Emma looked from the man to his Ghost and back. She shook his hand. “Mind if I have you consult on the rifle of whispers?”

“I’d love to,” he said easily. 

Relieved, she offered him an easy out. “Shall we see how many barrels of orbs we can fit on our ships?”

Nisus went from gripping her hand to nearly clutching it like a lifeline. “Miss Blake,” he breathed, eyes bright in the shadows. “I would dearly love to do exactly that.”


End file.
